Firebrand Roja Of YSRCP To Be Served Another Notice By AP Assembly?

The Speaker is alleged to have got angry with the principal Opposition leader’s remarks to the media when she came to vote in the Presidential election on Monday.

Amaravathi: The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly has on Monday readied another notice to be served on YSRCP MLA RK Roja, a known firebrand politician in AP politics. Roja is an MLA from Nagari Constituency in Chittoor, the native district of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

Monday’s move on the political chessboard of AP clearly indicates that Roja has become a target of the ruling Telugu Desam Party, whose hard-hitting speeches inside the Assembly and statements outside, have exposed the intolerant attitude of TDP against her, political observers say.

Earlier, Roja was suspended from the Assembly for one year on the premise that she had made inappropriate comments against Chandrababu Naidu in the House in the presence of the Speaker. She has contested this suspension in the Supreme Court.

When the AP Government maintained in the apex court recently that her grounds opposing her suspension had not reached it, the judges hearing the case asked Roja to serve a copy of the reasons in the court itself, which the Opposition leader did.

It is significant that a separate notice is proposed to be served on her, as the ruling party cannot anymore provide the excuse that the State Government has not received any material that contests her suspension.

Incidentally, the firebrand legislator had made her presence felt when she voted in the Presidential election on Monday. Her party YSRCP, the principal Opposition, is supporting BJP nominee Ram Nath Kovind, a la the ruling TDP. She utilised the occasion to once again criticise Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasad Rao, who is said to be the key person behind her initial suspension.

“A man who occupies the chair of Speaker must be neutral,” was her parting shot while criticising Kodela. Roja pointed that both N Kiran Kumar Reddy and KR Suresh Reddy, who had acted as Speakers of the united AP Assembly, never attended Congress Legislature Party meetings to ensure neutrality of their post in the public mind. Kodela had attended such a meeting of ruling Telugu Desam legislators in the mock training preceding the Presidential polls in AP on Monday.

She charged that her bête noire was behaving more like a TDP MLA than a Speaker. Roja maintained that she is leaving the issue to the latter’s wisdom. This matter in front of the media reached Kodela’s ear and, immediately, the Speaker is reported to have directed the Assembly staff to issue another notice to Roja.